Sample Emails not Being Received

[Viki_Sparks]

Hi Team,

Recently we aren't receiving any sample emails. There is no error shown in the course of send sample actions.

Does anyone facing the same issue?

[Viki_Sparks · Accepted solution]

Hi Guys,

It turns out to be that Microsoft was blocking all Marketo emails entering our mail servers as it was thought to be spoof mails. This happened when they updated the blacklist on March 29th.

Our IT team opened a case with MS and white-listed the all the Marketo domains.

Thanks for your support

VS

[Emily_Henson1]

Hi Viki,

I've had this problem many times before! I've also spoken to support about it before and they couldn't come up with a concrete reason as to why. If it's not an IT server issue or token issue, something in the email is likely corrupted. Usually when this has happened to me, I've had to go through and create the email again from scratch. Not a great solution, but that's what's helped me in the past!

[Gareth_Spencer]

This doesn't sound like the same issue, but we did have an error a while back with a few specific emails that we couldn't receive samples of. In that case, the email had corrupted somehow and the solution was to clone the email and try sending a sample again. In this case, the replacement email came through absolutely fine.

[Shari_Horton]

Any chance your recipient(s) have hit the system communication limit?

[Chris_Wilcox]

Are their tokens in your from name/from email fields on the email asset? If yes, you MUST select a record in the "PERSON" field for the sample to mimic being sent from, otherwise the tokens themselves will populate and the SMTP servers will not release or deliver the message even though it is technically sent.

[Viki_Sparks]

Yes, we do have tokens in all the fields and it used to work just fine until last Friday. I never had to use the "PERSON" field for this action. I did try now, but no luck.

However, I still receive samples on my gmail even without the using the "PERSON" field, but not on my work email.

And system communication limit for samples count?

[SanfordWhiteman]

There's no communication limit at play here.

Bottom line, go back to your IT team and ask them to check their SMTP logs.

[Chris_Wilcox]

What kind of token is in your name/email field? Is it a velocity script token (will start with {{my.___}}) or a {{lead.___}} token?

It is not my understanding that test emails count towards communication limits as they do not go through the production email compiler on the backend.

One thing to also test -- Find your record in lead database (the one with your work email where the sample isn't coming through), right click on the email and go to Marketing > Send Email and send a production version of the asset and see if that comes through. I have had issues, specifically when using tokens in from name/email, with test not working correctly.

Please let me know if you're using a script token there, because I know of something that could be happening inside the script that could be causing this too!

[Viki_Sparks]

Here is how the tokens look like in the address section and body section.

I also tried sending the production email from the lead database but no luck. But the result shows "Delivered".

And it's not the issue with a particular email, but with all. Samples from the cloned or a newly created email with a starter template isn't working either.

I'm trying to send the sample email to myself to check the flow, my lead information is up to date in the database. Didn't work when tried sending to a colleague either

[Chris_Wilcox]

Alright so they do look like velocity script {{.my}} tokens. In my experience with similar issues, I've had two outcomes I've dealt with:

1. The sample email compiler was simply not working correctly. When you sent yourself the production version of the email, if this was the cause it would have been delivered as expected so this is likely not the cause. When this was my situation, Marketo's support team helped me to diagnose so a support ticket could help.
2. The velocity script token code is not properly closed with an #else case in the logic. I don't know if this is the issue, but it's not impossible.

Other possibilities are that the issue could be with your internal mail server blocking the emails or marking them as SPAM, which I'd recommend Sandford's recommendation of having your IT team check the SMTP logs. The last reason I can think of is some kind of backend Marketo issue, which you'd have to submit a ticket for.

If you could share the code of the token we could rule out #2, but I understand if that's not something you'd like to do.

Good luck...

[Jay_Jiang]

There could be many factors at play. First thing to try - have you tried sending a sample to gmail or hotmail inboxes? check in the spam folder as well

[Viki_Sparks]

Well, the samples sent to gmail and hotmail delivers just fine but not my work email and nothing in spam. IT team says, they didn't change any whit-listed IPs recently.

[Jay_Jiang]

If Gmail or Hotmail can receive sample emails and it's not going into their spam, then there's nothing wrong with Marketo, or most likely your email template.

Next - send a "live test" to yourself. i.e. run a smart campaign where you send the email to yourself.

[Viki_Sparks]

Nope, nothing showed up when used a smart campaign to send the email.

[Chris_Wilcox]

Just because Gmail and Hotmail can receive the email and not the internal system doesn't mean much depending on how those test records are setup. Depending of what kind of token and how it's built, if (for example) the test records don't have all of the required fields to execute the velocity script, and then script doesn't have a proper #else to capture all users that fail the other script requirements, that could lead to some test records working while while others would not. This is why I also asked to send a production email as well, and wanted to understand what kind of script it is.

If they're standard lead fields and not a velocity script token, you're definitely right. Curious what is going on here!

Sent with BlackBerry Work (www.blackberry.com)

[Jay_Jiang]

While good to be thorough, I was already 99% sure, based the OP's reply, that the issue is to related to their email server set up.

In addition, the OP wrote:

I never had to use the "PERSON" field for this action.

Suggesting all their tokens most likely had :default=values

Lastly, Marketo emails containing velocity tokens should always be tested through running a smart campaign and not send sample.